


a skilled rider

by nami64



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Family Feels, Friendship/Love, I Don't Even Know, Sexual Repression, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 03:36:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12879354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nami64/pseuds/nami64
Summary: for this prompt : lyanna doubts arthur’s riding skills and wants to help him (AU)





	a skilled rider

_setting in[this Essos AU where everybody survived](http://marthajefferson.tumblr.com/post/164939246901/asoiaf-au-arthur-dayne-wasnt-killed-and-lyanna) and lives now away from Westeros’ mess (and yes: jon is named jon is every universe, this is law!). as you will see, i took a few ‘liberties’ with the prompt. (and my first fic for these two, so please, be indulgent!)_

 

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“I am better than you.”

There was no need of being precise for him. Lyanna was a better person than he was in every way, so he simply nodded at her statement. “You are.”

“A better rider I mean.” The young woman wanted to be precise anyway.

Then -a scream, and they both looked hastily at the ocean. _A laugh,_ they realized, as Jon was playing with the sand, making castles and running around, splashing water on his ephemeral buildings when tired of being a ‘lord'. And any panic vanished. Arthur and Lyanna watched him from afar, leaned back against a rock warmed by the sun. 

They spent the day on a deserted beach on the Orange Coast, a few miles from Volantis. The sound of the waves, the smell of salty sea air, the colour of the water… The beauty of this continent was the easiest part of their exile to accept.

“Hmmm I am… not certain about that my Lady.”

She gave up on trying to convince him to use her name after two years and many demands, but she would definitely fight to defend her indisputable talents. However, there was no irreverence in Arthur’s words, more a teasing music she had learned to recognize and to play with. She looked up at the man sitting by her side: white linen shirt out of grey breeches, purple eyes carefully watching the waves, dark stubble and hair, a faint smile gracing dignified features… The sun seemed to love him, for his skin was born to profit and benefit under it. “I saw many tourneys, many exceptional riders. I am pretty good myself,” he eventually breathed, pulling her out of her contemplation.

“Certainly. But, when it comes to just you and I,” she bumped her shoulder against his broad one, “I am better than you.“

Though still focused on the ocean and Jon playing, he shrugged, feigning disinterest. And Lyanna smiled. They’d been playing this game for a while now, a whole year of teasing and flirting and general suggestiveness -mostly on her part. Arthur’s distance excited her, for he seemed to be holding back, giving in to his instinct inch by inch. She wanted to draw it out, know it in its fullness. She wanted to be _wanted_ by this man.

Her slender hand reached down to take his in the sand. “I could teach you,” she suggested, “to mount properly.”

“I’m too old my Lady.” _Too old to learn. Too old to change. Too old for you._

“You are _not_ , Arthur,” she answered right away, the weight of her chin resting now on his shoulder. “Look, I know that we own just one mare but we can try to improve your style anyway.”

Arthur’s face turned towards hers and Lyanna saw the minuscule tightening in his strong jaw. “And how?” he asked, amused eyes searching hers.

“Well, you’ve got to learn the theory first in order to know what you’re doing, right?” There was a tone in her voice he knew too well. “Let me show you.”

His purple eyes widened when she shifted her stance, her petite form climbing onto his lap to straddle his hips. The way she had executed the maneuver so perfectly left Arthur stunned for a moment.

“My Lady?” he breathed, the words caught in his throat.

She raised her forefinger at him. “First lesson. You need to learn how to sit properly on your saddle and to find your balance.” Lifting one hand to rest on his pectorals for stability, she moved on top of him, seeking for the most _secure_ position. A simple roll from her hips, quickly followed by a frown from him. “Your legs must hold on tight. This way… the stallion knows _who is truly in charge.”_

“My Lady, yo–”

“Lyanna,” she cut across him. Her hands rested on his chest, feeling his rib cage expand as her knight inhaled deeply. “Second lesson: the reins.” Light fingers traveled up to the wisps of his black strands and her hands fisted in tousled hair. “The grip has to be strong and solid, and yet… you have to give some slack. If not, the stallion will rebel.”

Arthur was at a loss for words at her boldness, such was the power of that small woman. Fingers twitched into the sand, he kept his arms by his side and his wide and unblinking eyes on her. Briefly, he thanked the fact that Lyanna adopted the less conformist dress-code of their new land: a pair of man’s trousers, under a light tunic ornamented with embroideries she made herself ; if she had simply worn a gown, she would have certainly felt hi- “I witnessed people using whips,” Lyanna crooned, unable to hold back a wicked smile, “but I don’t like this at all. A  shame, truly, to hurt such a magnificent and obedient animal, isn’t it?”

Was she really expecting an answer from him?

“Third lesson: the commands and the tone used.” At this point, the whole breathing thing was forgotten by Arthur, and he opened eyes he hadn’t even realized he’d shut when she spoke. “Intonations are more important than orders, since a stallion is a very instinctive animal,” she purred, “You shout orders. You do not whisper them.” Lyanna’s fingers tightened more in his dark locks and she noticed only now that both his hands had moved from their previous places on the sand to now being still, in the air, inches above her legs straddling his waist. _Afraid of touching her._ “If I whisper my commands, if I whisper orders like... _faster_ –” her hands slowly drifted down his scalp to rest on his tense shoulders, “– _higher_ –” to run gently up and down his arms, “– _slower_ –” to eventually wrap around his wrists, “–would the stallion obey?”

This drew another sigh from him and the sound made her pause: the normal soft purple of Arthur’s eyes was now only a thin ring around dark pools of repressed yearning and a heat swelled, radiated from his entire body. The sight made her bit her bottom lip and she rolled her hips once more, wriggling against his lower belly. Goose bumps rose over the nape of his neck. “My Lad–”

“Lyanna,” she corrected him again. _Please, say my name._ “Fourth lesson: the pace.” Her fingers were still curled around his wrists, but they never pushed his hovering hands down on her. _Please, touch me_. She leaned forward. “You and your stallion have to move together. In harmony. As one… In perfect… rhythm.” Each of her words punctuated an imperceptible rub against his clothed crotch.

A low groan. His gaze drifted from her eyes, to her hair, her nose, her lips, until he looked her in the eyes again. _Abandon._ His lips parted. “…Lyanna–”

She almost gasped at the word. 

The last person she had heard whispering her name was Rhaegar in a promise he hadn’t kept. A name chosen by her parents, used by her brothers, honored by the North, forgotten in Essos. The six letters vanished from her life in their exile for safety, Jon calling her ‘mother’, and Arthur calling her  ‘my Lady’. But now, hearing it after years, in someone else’s mouth, in her knight’s mouth with such reverence and awe… it felt real. And clean again. _She was Lyanna._

Her tongue darted out to moisten her chapped lips. “Say it again.”

His hands finally landed on her thighs. “Lyanna,” he murmured.

A deep, perhaps irrational part of her wanted him to say it again, and again, and again, to compensate for years of oblivion. She put steady hands where his elbows bent and could only breathe in the clean scent of him along with the salty smell of the shore. _Again._ “Please…”

The scream was higher this time. 

It snapped them out of their trance, and they both instantaneously focused their attention on the dark haired boy at the water’s edge. A laugh, a high and enthusiastic cry, and the boy destroyed another sand-castle. Lyanna sighed out of relief and heard a identical breath from the man beneath her. Her Jon didn’t seem to like castles or being a Lord.

When she turned back to Arthur, his hands were gone from her legs but rested on her waist, yet she knew the moment was gone now. Quickly but gently, he pulled her off him as if she weighed no more than a single snowflake, to put her back to her initial position by his side. She tried to protest but Arthur was already on his feet, looking down at her. “I need to–”, he paused and she knew he was searching for the right way to finish the sentence, “I need to go for a swim.”

Lyanna’s eyebrows raised. “A swim?”

“This is a beach.”

His plain statement should have induced a quick and caustic reply from her, but her mind didn’t completely recover yet from the thrill of Arthur’s body trapped beneath hers and her name on his tongue. 

He moved to face the ocean, his back to her, and promptly pulled his shirt over his head. At the sight of his bare back, she didn’t divert her eyes. On previous occasions she had spotted his strong body through veils and curtains or interstices, but had hastily repressed the memory or the desire to study it longer. Now, leaning back on her arms, fingers in the sand, Lyanna observed him in all his tanned and muscled glory. “You need a cold bath, don’t you?” she smiled.

That she was able to make a joke of what just happened made a part of Arthur that was tense relax ompletely. He looked at her over his shoulder. “Can you look after my shirt please? Oh, and after your son as well… occasionally.”

She scooped up a fist full of sand and threw it at him, but the light earth-dust never reached its target. “Hey! I am an exemplary mother.”

With a sudden seriousness she was familiar with, he answered. “You are, my Lady.“

 _My Lady, again._ Lyanna let out a sigh of annoyance but the vision of her bare-chested knight walking toward the sea in simple breeches made her mood change. 

When he reached Jon’s level, he gently ruffled the boy’s hair, which incited a new laugh from her son and made Lyanna smile even more. It was a simple action, almost unnoticeable, but one swelling her heart with a warm lump of joy.

Arthur dived into the blue ocean, Jon built another castle, and Lyanna dug her feet into the warm sand.

In that moment, ‘exile’ didn’t seem as frightening as it had sounded almost 4 years ago.

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End file.
